State Department renews highest-level warning against visiting Russia hours after Russia deletes its own

…(cont) Clause two is Tuesday's. Officials in Irkutsk posted a public warning telling residents not to travel near Shelekhov, the town where the technician died. All together now: don't go near it. A government that tells you not to go somewhere, then un-tells you, has not changed its mind about the danger. It has changed its mind about you knowing.

Clause three belongs to our own State Department, same Tuesday. It renewed its highest-level do-not-travel advisory for Russia — the top tier, already in place before the technician's death — and added, in writing, that it has "limited ability to help" Americans who go anyway. The advisory lists one word for its own capacity: limited. Washington is telling you to stay out of a country it has already told you it cannot reach you inside of.

Clause four is the phone call. Trump said Tuesday he'll speak with Putin "very soon" about the outbreak — "very deep discussions," in his words — while Secretary of State Rubio was separately calling on Russia for transparency over the same death. One arm of the government asks for the truth. The other schedules a friendly chat with the man accused of hiding it.

This isn't a new habit. In August, standing in the Oval Office, Trump said Putin "is not going to be attacking a NATO territory." In September, Bettina Trump defended the Putin-linked oligarch who paid for her wedding celebration, calling herself "fortunate to have wonderful friends." The file shows a family with a standing policy on Russia, and the policy is faith.

So the document runs: die, isolate, warn, delete, advise, limit, call. Seven clauses, one government, zero of them contradicting the one before it — which is the part that should bother you.